


THE NEW FAIRYTALE

by Zoya1416



Series: If Ever I Would Leave You [4]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Children of Olivia and Dono, F/M, Family, Politics, Sex Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 16:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dono and Olivia's children need to hear the truth before they hear any lies.<br/>But when you need to tell a six year old about a sex change, what works on Beta doesn't help on Barrayar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	THE NEW FAIRYTALE

**Author's Note:**

> Set seven years after ACC, spoilers for ACC

Olivia could tell that Dono was frustrated in his reading. “These Betan books are hopeless! They presume you live in a society where people do this sort of thing all the time! That everyone has friends, neighbors, relatives who all change sex at their own whims! Nothing is serious, they act like the whole thing is normal.”  
***

 

Seven years after Donna died and Dono was born, as he thought of it, there was nothing of the woman left behind. Count Dono Vorrutyer had taken complete hold of his district and had it well in hand. The cities were productive, the little towns had more streetlights and paved streets, or at least graveled ones. His district was mountainous and had the production of iron, minerals, gold, to support it. He was building good roads to get the ore to markets quicker, and building smelters up by the mines to ship iron instead of ore.

There were deep streams and waterfalls, and rivers, and he had encouraged tourism as well as careful hydroelectric power. He had Barrayar's most active volcano, and had supervised the removal of two small villages when it began to smoke again. After the fireworks were over, he created a whole new industry, and now had craftsmen who could make jewelry and polished art-stones out of the cinnabar, chaldedony, realgar, and other colored ejecta. 

He'd solved boundary disputes and water-rights issues, planned urban-renewal projects, and heard hundreds of business leaders' pleas that their problem was the most important since the Time of Isolation.

He took his Council of Counts duty seriously, and had shown up for every session except for the time a flood was desolating an area, and when their babies were born.

And although he toiled busily for the District, he adored his family and spent at least two hours daily with them. He'd heard Miles brag about how his father, when Prime Minister, took that time with him, and thought it was a good idea. 

He had the six children that were all Olivia and he thought they could raise.

The twins, Demitry and Mariya, were now six and the subject of this conversation.

The spares, and Dono hated hearing them called that, were his middle boys, Lyov, now three, and Andrei, two. They had started two more twin girls this month, Alyona and Valeriya.

The succession of heirs to the Vorrutyer district was now as firmly settled as he could make it.

He had power, satisfaction in his work, an adoring wife, beautiful family, and now, sitting with his back to a cool shaded rock, he scowled and rubbed his forehead. His wife said it was time to tell their children about the past. It was a quiet afternoon, the insects buzzing.

“Why do we have to tell them anything until they're older? They're too young to know about sex.”

“It's not sex. It's about what will happen to them the first time a classmate tells them that their Da used to be a girl,” Olivia said. “I'm surprised it hasn't happened already.” They had been hiking in the mountains, taking advantage of the cool weather in the summer heat.

She was still so beautiful to him, blond hair now wispy under the straw hat wore. She was lying in a mountain meadow of earth-born plants and surrounding pine trees, looking at the vast sky, with red, white, and little yellow summer flowers all around her. The children were jumping on and off rocks and dead tree trunks, each supervised by an armsman. 

He blew out a breath, and tried to think. He was and always would be a Barrayaran man, and the years and responsibilities, and children, and his wonderful marriage, with all its loving and problem solving, had, while not eliminating Donna's memories, pushed them into the background. She was always young, in his mind, although she had been forty when she died. He was nearly fifty, his dark beard was graying, and he didn't touch up his hair up like she had. She was passionate, involved in the Vorbarr Sultana high-Vor society and politics, until she had to start covering for Pierre at thirty-five. Then she was away from the capital for months, buried in the district and frustrated that she had no legal power, always had to coax and remind people that she was working for Pierre.

He mostly remembered her desperate trip to Beta Colony and the pain of the surgeries which killed her and let him be born, let him be recognized by the Council of Counts. How was he supposed to convey all that to a child?

“Look here,” said Olivia. “What if it's like a fairy-tale?”

“What, their Da was a fairy—which I never was--” He flopped down next to her, crushing her straw hat as he gathered her in for a deep embrace.

“No, Dono, like this: 'Once upon a time there was a man named Pierre. He was a Count, and a good Count, but he got sick. He died, and had named no heirs when he died.'”

Dono began to get into her scenario, and took the part of questioning children.

“But, Da, getting heirs for the District is one of the most important things for a Count to do! Why didn't he do it?”

“Well, he tried, but his cousin was a bad man--”

“A VERY bad man,” said Olivia.”

“Who chased your Da and tried to cut off--”

“Stop it!” But she was laughing silently, and it was good to be laughing about that terrible night when Richars went too far.

He said, “Okay. His cousin was a very bad man who wanted to be Count himself. Pierre tried to get married three times, and his cousin stopped it three times.”

Dono went silent, thinking about the third time, the lightflier 'accident.' He'd finally realized that Richars could have shone a powerful laser into the pilot's eyes, blinding him until the flier went down. Then the laser could be removed with no evidence, and it really would have been an accident.

He went on, “And then Pierre got sicker, and he died. His cousin was going to inherit his Countship, and he wouldn't take care of it right, and he wouldn't help his people.” He shut his eyes against the old painful fears about just how bad Richars would have been.

Olivia continued. “Pierre didn't have any children, but he had a very brave sister. She had worked for the district for five years, and she wouldn't have been able to keep working for it.”

Dono said, “Da, why couldn't she keep working?'

Answering himself, “Because her cousin was a complete arsehole and--”

" We don't have to do this now if you don't want to.”

He turned over until he, too was looking at the sky. “No, it's fine. I still get angry, not about what he did to me, but how Pierre let things go while Richars sniped and sniped at him, and Pierre did what Vorrutyers do best, go bat-shit crazy—and we'd be so far ahead, if he hadn't---” 

Now his view of the sky was replaced by the face of his wife, sweaty, with messy blond hair, looking both sympathetic and annoyed at the same time.

“Honey. It was over a long time ago. And you've done all that's humanly possible to change it. Do you know how they talk about you in the little mountain towns, the ones you've built out gravel roads for? You're their hero. When I went out to visit last time, half of them had your photo above Gregor's.”

They both winced at the lese-majesty.

“So. To continue your story. Pierre's very brave sister thought and thought about how to help her District. Only men can become Counts, you know,” and here Olivia snarled, “until we can get the damn primogeniture laws repealed.”

"Ah. Now you keep to the story,” Dono said.

“Pierre's cousin decided to do a very brave thing. It will seem like a strange thing to you, but it was the best thing that she could do for her District. She went to Beta Colony—I showed you on the Nexus wormholes chart, remember? So even though she was scared--” 

“Furious is more like it,” 

“she went to Beta, and she asked the doctors there to help her become a man.”

“What do you mean--How did they do that, Ma, Da--”

“She had some operations, and took some pills, and when she came back to Barrayar, she was a man. This is a strange thing on Barrayar, but on other planets it happens more often. On Beta Colony there are people who change sex three or 4 times in their lives because they want to live part of the time as women, and part of the time as men.”

(Oooh, icky, Ma, Da)

“Okay, anyway, he came back to Barrayar, and got the Council to confirm him the Count, and he got married, and he had children, and became a good Count. And this is where you are part of this story. The man who became Count is your Da, and he is a very good man, and a very good Count, and he loves you very, very much. And you wouldn't have been born if your Da hadn't gone to Beta Colony.”

They were quiet a minute. An eagle glided high above them.

“Liv, then they're going to have questions. How am I going to explain things?”

“We'll take it one question at a time. And if we have to, we'll tell them that it's something that they will understand when they're older. And then we'll get them ice cream sundaes.”

He was silent another long time. He regretted nothing. Donna died, Dono was born, and Dono had a full life that the roistering, intriguing, scandalous Donna had never imagined. He sat up and helped his wife up. (still beautiful, his heart's desire.)

They startled at a scream. 

Mariya was tattling again. “Dima tripped Levushka, Dima tripped Levushka!”

The armsmen signaled that Lyov was fine, only a scrape to his forehead, but they went over to mete out justice and comfort the afflicted—not, he thought, a bad description of his daily work, his heart's second desire. He patted Olivia's bottom as she toiled up the meadow in front of him.

***************  
The next morning Dono woke Olivia very early. She looked up sleepily and saw him holding a small saucepan and a tripod made from three branches. She dressed quickly, and followed him down to the lake. There, Dono cut a piece of his dark hair, and Olivia added a lock in blond. They stood silently as the death offering for Donna burned and the sky grew pinker. Olivia hesitantly broke the silence. "I guess Donna liked to come down here to the lake."  
Dono finally smiled. "Yes, and she brought her friends, as well. They...all liked skinny-dipping."  
Olivia laughed out loud.


End file.
